Minimum Viable Skills for Senior Researcher

Introduction: Open Science mission for this role

This Skillset profile focuses on Open Science (OS) skills and activities relevant for senior researchers. Senior researchers are typically defined as those who are established within their fields, developed a level of independence, and typically lead research projects. The profile highlights the role of Senior Researchers in setting the agenda by implementing OS policies, raising awareness, and mentoring and training Early Career Researchers in the principles of Open Science.

Senior Researchers are key actors within institutional contexts in promoting Open Science and FAIR principles among research colleagues, and in supporting them ensuring that relevant data or other research outputs are made FAIR/Open in accordance with domain standards and stakeholder expectations. They are expected to be catalysts for change in how research is conducted by centering open science practices, and show leadership through implementing Open Science policies in their own research projects and teams, as well as their role in mentoring and training students, raising awareness of open science among undergraduate and masters students, and acting as a bridge between the scientific community and technical services. To achieve this mission, Senior Researchers are expected to possess an expert-level understanding of Open Science and FAIR principles and their applications in their discipline-specific contexts, including regulatory, ethical and policy requirements. In turn, they need to be supported by research organizations in this mission, in the form of Open Science policies and relevant resources to implement them.

Senior researcher

Organisational context:

Governmental organizations
National agencies
National funding organizations
Research Performing Organizations

Essential skills and competences

Recognize discipline-specific Open Science principles and identify practices relevant to them at every stage of the research workflow.
Outline relevant practices of Open Science and FAIR principles and create guidelines for their research teams.
Ability to identify and keep track of open research funding, and acquire funding that furthers Open Science goals through writing grants and funding applications.
Mentoring and training researchers and students in Open Science practices throughout the research life-cycle, and nurturing professional development of Early Career Researchers in accordance with Open Science principles.
Ability to build professional collaboration frameworks between academia and industry or other sectors to enable Open Science, build research projects that embed open science principles throughout.
Ability to collect, annotate and document data and software, create metadata, use relevant taxonomies, handle big data sets and use existing repositories.
Developing expert-level awareness of legal aspects related to Intellectual Property Rights (eg copyright, patents and trade secrets) and other Non-Personal Data (eg IoT data and research data), Personal Data Protection and Governance (eg processing Personal Data under the current legal framework, and managing data use agreements and policies on Data Protection), Privacy, and (Open) Licensing rules and frameworks, as well as the use of data and information which may be considered sensitive.
Developing expert-level awareness of ethical principles (e.g., transparency, diversity and accountability) and best practices (e.g., avoiding bias in data processing when using data-driven technologies) applicable to their field of expertise, including, but not limited to the general ethical principles, frameworks and codes of conduct applicable to research (e.g., the RRI Framework; the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity).
Ability to balance (personal and non-personal) data protection requirements with Open Science/FAIR principles.
Applying open publication practices, such as publishing preprints, publishing in open access journals and platforms, ensuring data and code are available in open repositories to the extent possible.
Engaging with stakeholders outside academia to maximize research impact.

Soft/ transversal skills

Effective communication
Ability to provide constructive feedback
Research management and leadership
Time and people management
Teamwork and collaboration
Problem-solving
Research integrity

Background Assumptions

Main Activities:

Applies Open Science policies, strategies and best practices
Promotes and supports Open Science principles in their disciplinary fields by training other researchers in open science practices, methods and skills
Contributes to education and professional development of students and Early Career Researchers by developing curricula and programs in Open Science methods, including data management
Provides researchers in their group with appropriate knowledge and support to understand regulatory, ethical and policy requirements affecting their research
Designs and manages research activities
Builds and coordinates research teams
Establishes collaboration networks

Contributes to Open Science Outcomes

The main objective of the Senior Researcher is to conduct and oversee high quality and reproducible research, undertaken with integrity. Given their role in supervision, education, hiring, journal editing, peer review, and informing institutional policies, Senior Researchers can establish a research environment that supports and implements Open Science. Crucially, Senior Researchers have a responsibility to manage and nurture Early Career Researchers. This can be achieved via the following:

Advocating for and championing Open Science principles and policies in their institutions
Promoting education and training about open science skills, resources and solutions amongst other researchers and students
Integrating Open Science knowledge into their own teaching and research practices

Further Information - Open Science Skills Terms

OS skills terms match the essential skills in this MVS to competence definitions from relevant taxonomies. Terms are selected to add further information and to aid discovery of this MVS (an extended list is added at the foot of this document). Sources: European Skills, Competences and Occupations ontology (ESCO), ResearchComp, terms4FAIRskills, Center Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement.

ESCO Research Skills: Demonstrate disciplinary expertise; Manage findable accessible interoperable and reusable data; Manage research data; Synthesise information; Apply for research funding; Mentor individuals; Teach in academic or vocational contexts; Promote the transfer of knowledge; Communicate with a non-scientific audience; Increase the impact of science on policy and society; Manage intellectual property rights; Manage open publications; Apply research ethics and scientific integrity principles in research activities; Promote the participation of citizens in scientific and research activities; Perform project management; Integrate gender dimension in research.

ESCO Transversal Skills: Report facts; Manage financial and material resources; Show entrepreneurial spirit; Advise others; Address an audience; Instruct others; Build networks; Organise information, objects and resources; Respect confidentiality obligations; Moderate a discussion; Use communication and collaboration software; Critically evaluate information and its sources; Think critically; Show empathy; Lead others; Adapt to change; Meet commitments; Cope with uncertainty; Plan; Show initiative; Assume responsibility; Approach challenges positively; Make decisions; Cope with stress; Manage time; Manage Frustration; Resolve conflicts; Negotiate compromises; Show commitment; Work in teams; Build team spirit; Demonstrate intercultural competence; Keep an open mind; Show determination; Solve problems; Think analytically; Identify problems; Demonstrate trustworthiness.

ResearchComp: Disciplinary expertise; Abstract thinking; Strategic thinking; Write research documents; Show entrepreneurial spirit; Mobilise resources; Promote open innovation; Teach in academic or vocational contexts; Promote the transfer of knowledge; Vocational context; Build mentor-mentee relationships; Develop networks; Work in teams; Interact professionally; Communicate to the broad public; Increase the impact of science on policy and society; Manage research data; Apply research ethics and integrity principles; Negotiate; Promote open access publishing; Participate in publication process; Manage personal professional development; Promote citizen science; Critical thinking; Evaluate research; Plan self-organisation; Ensure wellbeing at work; Cope with pressure; Problem solving; Creativity; Analytical thinking.

Terms4FAIRskills: Assessment on FAIR data criteria; Knowledge to contextualise fair principles to domain; Persistent identifiers management; Selecting appropriate data handling methods; Mentoring on open and fair methods; Training in open and fair methods; Crediting research contributors; Metadata creation;Data production; Data processing; data acquisition; Data analysis; Data categorisation; Data curation; Data destruction; Data discovery; Data driven decision management; Data harmonization; Data ingestion; Data repository management; Data sharing and publication; Depositing in repository; Evaluating repositories for data deposit/sharing; Data access risk assessment and mitigation; Ethical application of patents, licenses; Data policy; Open peer review; Stakeholder engagement on societal impact; Research management; Research integrity, attribution, impact awareness; Data sharing and publication.

CSCCE: Strategy development; Content creation and curation;Content planning; Record keeping;Landscape analysis; Speaking and presenting; Proposal development; Advancement, growth and sustainability; Collaboration; Data analysis; Advancement, growth and sustainability; Engagement; Evaluation and assessment.

Link to any other MVS that this MVS is based on (from those in Skills4EOSC D2.1)

Contributors

Saba Sharma, Dominique Green, Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, Gabriela Torres-Ramos, Claire Sowinski, Karolina Dostatnia, Luca Schirru, Angus Whyte